The Maldives' opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed, who is serving a 13-year jail term following a controversial trial, has been given permission to travel to Britain for surgery, the government said Saturday.

Senate Democrats are beginning to fear that the country’s increasingly dim economic outlook will cost them their seats in 2012 and are trying to craft a new agenda aimed at spurring job creation.

While there is no shortage of ideas of what a plan could include — from a payroll tax holiday to increased infrastructure spending — Democrats haven’t settled on the details or whether to craft one large package or push through a series of narrow measures. They’re also unsure how to sell their plans to the public or how to engage Senate Republicans.

WASHINGTON — During a lengthy and at times emotionally wrenching news conference, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California on Thursday announced legislation that would ban the sale and manufacture of 157 types of semiautomatic weapons, as well as magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

A new study from researchers at Tyndall National Institute and the National University of Singapore shows that subtle changes in the intermolecular van der Waals interactions in the active component of a molecular diode can improve the device performance by more than a factor of ten.